Ripples on the Surface
by Lawson227
Summary: After Jughead spots something shocking on Veronica's phone, the two of them have a surprising heart-to-heart about Betty. Spoilers through S1 Ep6. Television canon compliant.


**AN:** This was just something that popped into my head and wouldn't let go, especially since I am intrigued by the idea of an eventual Jughead/Betty pairing. I'm going to work with what we've been given with respect to the evolving television canon rather than the established comics canon because if there's anything Berlanti & Co do, is take established canon and turn it on its ear. So—

Spoilers through S1 Ep6

* * *

He was never supposed to have seen it. Of that, he was absolutely certain. And if not for a series of unfortunate events—with apologies to Lemony Snicket—he never would have. If only he'd gotten up from his booth a split second earlier or later or if only he'd just stayed in the damned booth to begin with—hell, if he hadn't been at Pop's at all, as unrealistic an option as that was, he would never have bumped into Veronica. As in, bodies literally crashing together, stumbling back, dropped purse, books, and most damning of all, cell phone sliding across the floor and coming to a stop at his feet .

He was shocked on two counts. One, that she dropped the phone at all. He would've sworn the thing was permanently welded to her hand and two—and the real kicker for him—what was on the screen of said phone. His hand closed over it an instant before Veronica and despite her insistent tug and frantic hiss of, "Jughead, give it!" he kept hold, his gaze glued to the image he knew he _never_ should have seen.

For a lot of reasons.

Still stunned, he barely resisted as Veronica hustled them back to his booth before they drew too much attention. Normally, drawing attention wouldn't be a concern for him. Mostly because no one gave a shit. But the odds had skewed decidedly in favor of attention with a capital A once Veronica became part of the equation. He knew she couldn't help it—attention and drama swirled around her as effortlessly as the folds of her black cashmere cape—but that didn't mean it still didn't leave him feeling profoundly uncomfortable when even the faintest hint of that sort of attention illuminated so much as a sliver of his vicinity. He liked the dark and the shadows, dammit. They were his domain. He lived there, quiet and content to observe the world around him.

Solitary.

Which is why what he'd seen on Veronica's screen had stunned him so.

In all his observations—in all the things he'd seen—he'd _never_ seen anything like this.

Never expected to see anything like this.

That…creature—frozen in all her fierce, dark glory—she was a creature of the shadows too.

"I was about to delete it."

Her soft voice came at him as if from a distance, barely penetrating the fog enveloping his brain and all his senses.

"Were you?" Good job there, keeping his voice typically sardonic and dry. Certainly Veronica didn't notice anything amiss if the raised eyebrow and slight rearing back were anything to go by. Typically Veronica Lodge response—outrage that anyone would doubt _her_.

"No one needs to see this, Jughead. Certainly it doesn't need to get around to her mother."

"No," he drawled easily, belying the dry mouth that overcame him at the thought of Betty's mother catching wind of this. "Alice would definitely not approve."

"What about you?"

Thank God Pop came by at that precise moment with a plate of unasked for but always welcome fries, giving him a momentary smokescreen to hide behind.

"I doubt Betty requires my approval." Cool, steady—dripping with typical insouciance. Good…good…

"Bullshit."

Okay, maybe not so good.

"I've seen the way you look at her and more importantly, I've seen the way she looks at you. My girl Betty may have _thought_ she was in love with Archie Andrews, but much as I hate that I hurt her, maybe that stupid closet debacle was the best thing that could've happened in the long run. At least, it allowed the blinders to fall far enough away for her to see you."

A graceful hand, tipped with blood-red fingernails hove into his field of view which had remained resolutely focused on the battered formica surface, and selected a few fries from the plate.

"So tell me, Juggy, is this going to change how you see our sweet B?"

He looked up and met her challenging gaze head on, chess masters, sizing each other up. Jughead knew one wrong word—one wrong _look_ —and Veronica would not be above sabotaging this new, very fragile…thing, he and Betty had. Especially if she felt it would protect her friend from suffering further hurt. And this was considering he had a very strong sense she had no idea about the kiss he and Betty had shared. About the secrets they shared.

"What happened that night?"

That damnable eyebrow rose again as she leisurely reached for another fry. "My question first."

"Jesus, Ronnie—do you really think anything that superficial would change how I see Betty? Don't forget, I've known her our entire lives."

She lifted a shoulder. "So has Archie. Hasn't stopped him from being that superficial."

Despite the practiced casualness of the gesture and even more practiced tone, he could easily sense Veronica was referring to a hell of a lot more than just Archie's blithe dismissal of Betty's feelings. He spared a brief curious thought as to what his dickhead ex-best friend had done _this_ time before just as quickly dismissing it. Archie might be the center of the universe in his ever-narrowing Archie World, but as far as Jughead was concerned, right now he wasn't even a speck on the outer fringes of a black hole.

"Yeah, well I'm not Archie."

Once again, she seemed to be taking his measure with that sharp brown gaze. "No—" she said slowly, "no, you are not."

"So what happened that night?"

He knew the basics, of course. He'd seen the video, heard both Betty and Veronica's voices as they— _ahem—_ urged Chuck to tell the truth about what happened on his date with Veronica. He'd recognized Betty's voice as coming from behind Chuck and intellectually understood that the long legs, clad in black stockings and fuck me stilettos visible on the screen had to belong to her. But in his head, whatever was above those legs, was still Betty. The Betty he'd known his entire life. Probably wearing a skirt and sweater in the pastels she tended to favor—likely a cotton candy pink and mint green—her hair in its habitual ponytail, her lips their light, natural pink. _That's_ what he envisioned above those long legs in the black stockings and fuck me stilettos, incongruous as that image might've been.

The reality, however…

The impossibly short skirt and the lace bra, exposing a taut sliver of stomach…the bobbed jet-black wig and lined eyes and the red, red lipstick. A latter day Mrs. Mia Wallace.

"Can I get you kids anything else?"

"A Royale with cheese."

"A _what_?"

Jughead snapped out of his daze to find Pops staring, beefy arms crossed over his chest.

"Sorry—lost in my head there for a minute. Cheeseburger, Pop. Thanks."

From the corner of his eye he could just see Veronica's smirk, as if she knew exactly where his thoughts had taken him.

"You, Ronnie?"

"Just a strawberry milkshake, Pop. I'm sure if I'm really hungry, Jughead will give me a bite of his burger."

Pop snorted. "Girl, in your dreams." The corners of his mouth rose. "Come to think of it, the only person I've ever seen him share a burger with is Betty."

Christ on a bicycle—did _everyone_ know?

"That so?"

Jughead slouched further into the booth, hoping the cracked and battered vinyl would somehow swallow him whole. While the booth didn't oblige, Pop at least mercifully took his leave and while Veronica was still seated across from him, her smirk had at least faded to a faint smile as she sized him up yet again.

"It is going to change how you see her."

A sharp flash of irritation skittered up his spine, straightening him in the booth. Shoving the plate of fries off to the side, perhaps the first time in his life he'd ever pushed food away, he leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table. "Let's make a deal and quit pretending you have any idea how I see the world."

"Whoa, down tiger." The smirk was back, but it was tempered with…yeah, much as he hated to admit it, something akin to understanding.

"You, my friend, are definitely of the still waters run deep variety, but I know enough about you to be absolutely certain that knowing what happened that night is definitely going to change how you see Betty."

She held up a hand, forestalling the protest he was ready to let loose.

"But not for the worse."

His jaw snapped shut.

"Don't be an ass, Juggy. I know nothing short of murder could ever make you think less of Betty." She paused and considered for a moment. "Actually, scratch that—I don't even think murder would necessarily be a deal breaker."

She fell silent as Pop reappeared with two burgers, Veronica's shake, and a refill on Jughead's perpetual cup of coffee. Even after Pop disappeared back into the kitchen, she seemed to take her own sweet time unwrapping her straw and taking a long, considering sip of her shake, rather than just getting to it. After shooting his burger a meaningful stare, he picked it up and took a bite, not so much because he actually wanted it, but because he understood she wanted him to occupy himself so he wouldn't interrupt her.

"That night, Jughead—she was someone else."

Well, _d'uh_. He could've told her that himself, just based on the picture. But he kept dutifully silent, just taking bites of burger and pulling the plate of fries back between them, not caring that they were now more cold than not.

"At first, it was about what had been done to me and to Ethel and all the other girls in that damned ledger, but as she got more and more revved up, she started talking about Polly and Jason until she was finally calling Chuck 'Jason' and saying 'me' when she meant Polly. Honestly, I think if I hadn't stopped her, she might well have boiled Chuck alive in that hot tub. Not that he didn't deserve it on some level. And when I confronted her about it afterward, she tried to deny it, then she just shrugged it off. But I honestly don't think she was really that cavalier about it—at least not internally."

Veronica sighed and took a sip of her shake while Jughead chewed the last bite of burger thoughtfully, mulling over everything she'd just said.

He recalled how frantic Betty had become in the wake of visiting her sister—how intense and near-manic she'd been as she said her sister had been acting crazy and everyone knew her mother was crazy and maybe she was crazy too.

He'd calmed her down. And reassured her. And then he'd kissed her, feeling beneath the initial surprise and her sweet response, a live-wire thread of tension and power that sparked a similar response deep within him.

"This doesn't surprise you." Her tone was matter-of-fact.

"Yes and no."

He leaned back in the booth, coffee cup in hand. "If I'm still waters run deep, then Betty's the serene ripples on the lake's surface hiding unexpected depths. Dangerous depths."

Veronica nodded, her expression thoughtful. "People think they know what they're getting when they don't know at all." Her smile was half-rueful, half-chagrined. "I sure as hell didn't."

"To be honest, I don't think even Betty knows."

"But you do."

"I have some idea." Even more after seeing that picture and hearing Veronica's story of that night.

"And it doesn't scare you."

"Not much does."

"Good." She sighed again and slumped back into the corner of the booth, stretching her legs out along the bench. "Good."

He took another sip of coffee. "Veronica, you have to delete those pictures. All of them—right now. Alice and Hal— _especially_ Alice—cannot ever be allowed to catch so much as a hint of a whiff of their existence. Because believe me, you don't want to know what they're capable of doing to Betty."

Visions of that gothic monstrosity of a Home For Wayward Girls with the nuns-cum-wardens, flashed in his mind's eye. He suppressed a shudder at the thought of Betty being locked away in a place like that, lost to him—to _herself_ —until there was nothing of the real her left. Just some Alice Cooper-approved Stepford Wife shell. Except that hadn't exactly worked out as planned for Polly, had it?

Wide-eyed, Veronica picked up her phone and after a few quick taps, handed it to him. He scrolled through the photos, seeing plenty of pictures of "V & B", of Kevin, and Archie, the Pussycats, and even Cheryl. He kept flipping through, dispassionately cataloging the various stars and cliques of Riverdale High, until he stumbled across the one picture guaranteed to make him do more of a double take than the one of Betty. A shot of himself perched alongside Betty in the Blue and Gold office, the two of them ostensibly absorbed with something on the computer screen, but in reality, focused intently on each other as they discussed who knows what.

He turned the phone to Veronica, head cocked in silent inquiry.

"Sorry, not sorry?" She at least had the good grace to look somewhat sheepish. "Neither of you even realized I was there and I couldn't resist."

He finished scrolling through the pictures and satisfied all the incriminating shots had been eliminated, returned the phone to Veronica—but not before messaging the picture him Betty and him to his phone.

"What about the video?"

"Weatherbee insisted on keeping a copy as evidence, but since I kept the focus on Chuck, you never see anything but Betty's legs. And I did some judicious…editing before we submitted it."

He released a sigh of relief, relaxing further into the worn vinyl. For the moment, at least, she was safe.

"You really care about her."

"Like I said, I've known her my entire life." Trying for the old Jughead Jones bravado and typical clinical assessment, even though both he and Veronica knew it for total bullshit. But Veronica surprised him yet again by simply nodding and smiling at him with a complete lack of snark or cynicism.

"It's good someone knows her—really knows her—the way you do."

"I don't know that I really do." He drained his coffee and set about collecting laptop, notes, and the various bits of detritus typically accumulated during his many hours in the booth. Standing, he slung his backpack over his shoulder. "But I'm not going to let that stop me."

Veronica looked up at him, pinning him once more with her gaze. "From?"

"Whatever's necessary." With a wave goodbye at Pop, he left the diner and headed out into the early evening. Fishing his phone from his pocket, he thumbed the screen awake, smiling slightly at the photo that immediately popped up before opening his text messages.

 ** _BeanieBoy: Busy?_**

 ** _Ponytail: Only if you count tuning out my mother's latest rant._**

 ** _BeanieBoy: Thrill a minute._**

 ** _Ponytail: My life, let me show you it._**

 ** _BeanieBoy: How about you show me at the Blue & Gold office? _**

**_BeanieBoy: I'm sure we can find some hornet nests to stir or traffic to play in._**

 ** _Ponytail: Oh, thank God—yes._**

 ** _Ponytail: You are so my hero, Juggy._**

 ** _BeanieBoy: Anytime Betts. Anytime._**

He shoved his phone in his pocket and turned the corner to head toward the school.

"Anytime, Betts." He invoked the words as equal parts prayer and promise. "Any damned time."


End file.
